Man sentenced for drowning puppy in downtown apartment

A downtown San Antonio resident was ordered Monday to serve nine months in a state jail facility for binding the legs and muzzle of a stray puppy with rubber bands, then drowning it in a bathtub.

Elton Aguillard, 35, pleaded guilty last month to cruelty to animals for the June 2010 incident, which was discovered when a maintenance worker at the Maverick Apartments forced his way into the defendant's dwelling to investigate a flooding complaint.

Inside the empty residence, the apartment employee found the faucet to Aguillard's tub still running, court documents state. Water mixed with feces was overflowing and the “Beagle-like” puppy was already dead, an Animal Care Services investigator noted.

In an interview with the investigator days later, Aguillard said he found the dog down the street and stuffed it into his backpack to sneak it into his apartment. When the dog defecated in the backpack, he decided to give it a bath, he said.

He bound the animal's legs so that it wouldn't escape the bathroom and get the apartment dirty, he said. And he improvised a rubber band muzzle because he wasn't allowed to have pets and he didn't want neighbors to report barking, he said.

“The animal ... was left by myself alive and breathing,” he added in a written statement, explaining that he had to leave the apartment to take his father to a sleep study. “She was not intentionally hurt or mistreated in any way or manner. Upon my return, I planned on bathing the puppy. She was only to be left for a short period of time.”

“We just wanted him to go to prison,” DiMaio said of the sentence. “One look at the (crime scene) photos explains exactly why.”

Cruelty to non-livestock animals is a state jail felony punishable by up to 2 years incarceration. Under terms of a plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to a maximum possible term of 18 months and to remain silent as defense attorney Ray Adams asked state District Judge Sid Harle for probation through the county's mental health program.

The judge denied the request, suggesting that Aguillard's issues couldn't be adequately treated through probation.